Through the years, humans have exhibited a persistent problem in maintaining health and fitness condition of their bodies as they go about their lives. One serious contributing factor has been the general trend for increased numbers of people to leave agrarian or rural environments in which hard physical labor was typical and to undertake lives instead in sophisticated urban and suburban environments which may generally be characterized as focusing greatly upon non-physical types of skilled labor and substantially reducing the amount of physical manual labor to which such urban and suburban dwellers are subjected. In addition to an overall change in society patterns from rural to urban and suburban, various changes in the eating habits and practices of people have lead to a general decline in the quality of nutrition people consume. For the most part, the average diet of urban and suburban dwellers is often heavy with so-called fast foods or convenience foods which typically contain reduced amounts of quality nutrition and excessive amounts of fats and sugars. As a result, the overall body condition and fitness of people in general has, for the most part, declined.
Poor body condition exhibiting itself as excess weight and reduction of muscle conditioning and strength is a substantial health concern. In addition, the accumulation of excessive weight and general atrophy of muscle condition tends to be regarded as less attractive, of particular concern, both as to general health and as to body appearance, is the tendency in inactive people to develop overly relaxed torso and abdominal muscles as well as excessive weight carried in the abdominal and other torso areas of the body.
It has been found that such poor muscle condition and excess weight in addition to cosmetic and fitness problems may further lead to or be concurrent with general posture problems. It has long been known that persons with exceedingly poor posture may be unduly subjecting their internal organs to potentially harmful stress and may foster other maladies which could easily be avoided had proper posture been maintained.
Despite the extremely undesirable and wide-ranging effects of poor abdominal and torso muscle conditioning and excess weight carried in the abdominal area, the solution for virtually all people is by no means a mystery. Unfortunately, the solution is simple to articulate but has proven exceedingly hard to implement for most people. Simply stated, people may avoid most of the above problems by indulging in moderate exercise, healthy diet and a conscious focus upon maintaining good posture as they go about their day. Experience has shown, however, that few individuals have the commitment or dedication to health to maintain this overall health regimen. As a result, an undue number of people suffer problems associated with health and posture difficulties.
One area of recent interest to medical and health practitioners has been the determination that a substantial benefit in posture and weight control and abdominal and torso muscle conditioning may be accomplished by exercising good posture and making an effort to maintain a tightened muscle condition of the abdominal muscles. The problem, however, is that it is difficult for most people to remember to exercise good posture and to maintain tightened abdominal muscles as they go about a busy day. The need arises therefore to provide a means by which such individuals seeking to improve their health may be reminded to exercise good posture and maintain tightened abdominal muscles for extended periods of time.
Not surprising in view of this need, practitioners in the art have endeavored to provide such "reminder devices". For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,157 issued to Sears sets forth a DEVICE FOR AIDING ABDOMINAL MUSCLE CONTROL having a band for placement about the human anatomy with switch components on the band and displaceable from one another which upon enlargement of the band establish an electrical circuit to a signaling device. An elastic member retracts the band in the absence of anatomical pressure to open the circuit and terminate operation of the signaling device. The signaling device is preferably a vibratory type.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,801,921 issued to Zigenfus sets forth an ABDOMINAL MUSCLE FIRMNESS ALARM having a control unit containing a mechanism for producing a signal in the form of an electrical charge or vibration impulse. A switch is provided for controlling operation and a timer is provided for selecting the interval between transmitted signals. Discs interconnecting the control unit to selectively chosen portions of the wearer's abdominal region are provided. When the wearer senses the signal through the discs, the wearer is reminded to contract the muscles of the abdomen increasing the muscle tone of the latter and serving to restore abdominal flattening.
While the foregoing described prior art devices have attempted to meet the need for reminder apparatus to stimulate the user to contract the abdominal muscles and exercise good posture, thus far such prior art devices have shown themselves to be subject to practical limitations when sought to be implemented for large numbers of users. Most typically, the abdomen connections of U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,921 have been clearly shown to be undesirable and impractical with users reluctant or refusing to use them. The structure set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,157 provides a vibratory stimulus, however, the device is unduly complex and burdensome for the user. In addition, the device has been shown to be unable to provide a simple and effective tension adjustment mechanism which will allow the user to be comfortable wearing the device. It has been found that users are extremely sensitive to the degree of tightness of a "belt" or other object encircling their abdomens for extended periods of time. No standard tightness preference has been found and the preferences of users varies from those preferring an extremely tight feel to those being intolerant of anything but the loosest feel.
There remains therefore a continuing need in the art for an improved posture and muscle training device which provides the benefits of improved posture and abdominal and torso muscle conditioning.